Mozilla releases Firefox bug fixes

The Mozilla Corporation has released a software update that repairs a number of bugs in its open source Firefox browser.

Firefox 1.5.0.2 introduces native support for OS X users running on Intel hardware, and addresses several bugs as well as security vulnerabilities.

"We’re identifying this as a critical release and we’re strongly recommending that everyone update as soon as possible," said Mike Schroepfer, vice president of Engineering with the Mozilla Corporation.

The update patches seven security holes, five of which were rated "Critical" by Mozilla.

The critical vulnerabilities could lead to a privilege escalation when users view a page under the "print preview" option or by bypassing a Java Script security check. In two other cases, Javascript could be used to run arbitrary code on a system without the user's knowledge or such code could be executed through a buffer overflow attack.

Mozilla summarized the patch for the fifth critical vulnerability as a fix for "several crash bugs to improve the stability of the product," focused on the used of dynamic html. Some of the crashes allowed arbitrary code to be executed.

The update addresses several bugs that for instance could cause the application to crash when a users loads Gmail in another tab or when accessing the Yahoo Mail beta.

Windows users will no longer experience an application crash when trying to print pages with absolutely positioned images.

The new version allows Apple users to once again use the scroll wheel on their mousse when they visit a page containing java applets. The application also supports several keyboard shortcuts, which had stopped working after the release of Firefox 1.5.

Current Firefox users will receive an automatic update notification or can manually apply the patch through the "check for updates" function.

Users running OS X on Intel powered Mac systems have to manually download the new Firfox version because the auto update feature will provide them with the PowerPC edition.